Your body breaks them down into glucose, which is a type of sugar that produces energy. When you have diabetes, your body either does not manage glucose correctly or does not produce enough insulin to adjust your body’s response to the processing of this vital nutrient. So it is important to monitor every bit of what you eat, and especially avoid super-sweet processed sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup and, instead, focus on natural sweets like fruits or certain vegetables. Processed foods tend to be less nutritious and more calorie laden than natural foods anyway, so the 1800 calorie diabetic diet is one that will focus more on what you can find in nature than what you can find in the snack food aisle at the store.